Dirty Sexy Alphas (Twenty Book Box Set) - Hannah Ford Page 0,90

to keep banging on the door?” I said.

His expression didn’t change. He was resolute. Stoic. “I refuse to give in to her. No matter the cost. Alexa has expensive tastes. She’ll run out of money, and then she’ll accept whatever I’m willing to give her.”

My eyes stung, but I refused to cry. How could he not see that he and I might be the cost of his refusal to budge?

I didn’t think he should give her a controlling interest in his business, but I also didn’t see how he could be so cavalier about the divorce drawing out for years and years like this.

How could he not think of me as he refused her? Maybe I could wait for him… but not if he didn’t even bother to ask me how I felt about it all. Not if he didn’t even recognize what this meant to us. Once again, I felt left behind and forgotten.

I stood up, facing him. “And what if it takes six years to get her to see reason? Or eight? Ten?”

He crossed his arms and stared at me, as if confused by my reaction. “I don’t care how long it takes. I won’t give up more of my company and my profits just to get rid of her.”

I shook my head, biting hard on my lip to keep from crying. I wouldn’t cry. Couldn’t. He didn’t shed tears over me, he didn’t deserve mine. “But you’ll give up me.”

“What?” He said, confusion lacing his tone. “No. I’m not giving up on us.”

“Right, you’ll just ask me to sit around for a decade or so until you’re divorced, that’s all.”

“Taryn--” He stepped toward me, reaching out.

But I jerked away. “You really think it’s so easy for me to fall in love with a married man?”

“This isn’t about you,” Landon said.

“Exactly!” I cried, throwing my hands up. “It’s never about me. It’s about you, and what you want, and everything you prioritize in life that comes in front of me. For just a second, I let myself think that there would come a day I was number one to you. But I just keep waiting, and that day never comes.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true! You’d rather be married to her for another ten years than give her anything more. You’re choosing your own battles and your own demons over me. You did it all those years ago, and you’re doing it now, and it’s never going to change.”

Damn it all the tears brimmed, glimmering in my eyes and making it hard to see his expression. “I fell in love with a man who is never really going to love me back. Not the way I love him,” my voice broke, and I angrily wiped away the tear that trailed down my cheek. “Because I would do anything for you. I would give up everything for you, if only I knew that you’d be there for me in the end. But you know what? It’s always been a mirage with you. Every time I think I see a future, I get a little closer and it disappears.”

“Taryn--”

“No, Landon. This is really it. I have to move on from all of this. And if you care about me, even an ounce, you’ll let me do that.”

And then I pushed past him, another tear trailing down my cheek. I stumbled on the threshold to the patio door, but caught my footing and rushed across his house, out the front door, and down to my car. Sobs threatened to wrench free as I shoved the key into the ignition and peeled out of his driveway.

In the rearview mirror, Landon stood on his front porch, motionless as he watched me leave. Through the tears, his expression looked empty. Blank. As if he would accept my leaving him, rather than run after me.

Rather than win me back.

I realized then, as my car carried me further way, that I’d still expected him to do something. I thought somehow he’d grab my arm as I rushed by him, that he’d run out into the front drive barefoot and push the car door shut, take my keys from my shaking hands, and tell me he loved me. Tell me he’d do anything to make sure we could have a future together, a future unencumbered by his past, by his ex, by his demons.

I hated myself for believing in him at every turn, even though he only ever gave me reasons to distrust him.

But that had to end.